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13-Year-Old Boy Catches 250-Pound Shark

A 13-year-old boy caught and released a massive 250-pound shark while fishing at a New Jersey beach on July 24.

Gianni Mandile was fishing with his father, Joe, on Long Beach Island for the entire day of July 23 without seeing much action.

Then, on the following afternoon, Gianni saw one of his rods start to shake.

"He saw it first," Joe told WABC. "As the wave curled, he saw the silhouette of the shark in the wave and he said, 'Dad, it's big, it’s a big shark!'"

The young boy, who has been fishing since he was 3-years-old, held the shark on the line for 30 minutes while his father gave him fishing advice. Before long, a crowd of people gathered to watch the spectacle.

"It felt like a concert arena," Joe told WPIX.

Once the shark was close enough, Joe jumped into the water, grabbed hold of it and pulled it onto the beach.

Gianni and Joe then posed with the shark for a series of photographs before releasing it back into the water.

Their family follows a strict catch-and-release policy, according to WPIX. They never keep or kill the fish they catch.

To determine the shark's weight, Joe asked a man who weighed 210 pounds to lie down in the sand so he could see how difficult it was to drag him. The man was easier to drag than the shark, and Joe estimated the shark was about 40 pounds heavier.

Gianni said a shark of that size was the last thing he expected to catch.

"I didn't expect to catch something that big," he told WABC. "Because other people have caught those types of fish but usually at night, so I wasn't expecting to catch it in the middle of the day."